KBB#9: Classic Puff Pastry (Pate Feuilettee)

Cinnamon Palmiers :D


Another lovely number for me.... 9 (sembilan/nine/nein)

Another lovely recipe for the KBB latest challenge, Puff Pastry with pure butter :D.

The recipe itself is simple, you will need:


1 pound (4 cups) unbleached all purpose flour/plain flour or #31/2 cups flour+1/2 cups cornstarch
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled 1/2 stick, keep the rest at room temperature.
1 - 2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups cold water (you could subtitute it with 1T lemon juice for 1 T water to temper the gluten)

*Dough:
___Measure the flour into a mixing bowl. Remove ½ cup and set it aside in another bowl. Take the half stick of chilled butter, cut it into small pieces and drop it into the flour. With two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips, cut or rub the butter into the flour until it resembles cornmeal.
___Add the salt (and optional lemon juice) to the water and add this to the flour. Mix gently with a fork until you have a rough dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If you need to add more water, do it a tablespoon at a time until the dough holds together.
___Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and the gluten has been somewhat developed, about 2-3 minutes. Wrap it in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

*Butter
___Take the remainder of the butter and the reserved flour and mix the two together until they're well blended and smooth. You can do this with a mixer, a food processor or with a spoon, by hand.
___Pat this butter/flour mixture into an 8-inch square on a lightly floured piece of waxed paper. Cover it with second sheet of waxed paper and refrigerate it for at least 30 minutes. By mixing the butter with flour, you stabilize it somewhat so it won't decide to 'flow'.

*Rolling-Folding
___Remove the dough from the refrigerator and put it on a lightly floured surface. Gently roll it into a square about 12 inches on a side. You don't have to be obsessive about the dimension but be pretty close.
___Put the butter square in the centre of the dough square but turn it so that the corners of the butter square point toward the sides of the dough square. Fold the corners of the dough over the butter until they meet in the middle. Pinch and seal the edges of the dough together.
___Turn the square over and tap it gently with your rolling pin or by hand into a rectangular shape. Rolling the dough into a larger rectangle 20 inches long and 10 inches wide.
___When the dough is the right size, fold the bottom third of the dough up to the centre and the top third over and turn the dough package ¼ turn to the right so it looks like a book ready to be opened. If the dough is still nice and cold and still relaxed, do another rolling and turning the same way. (If it begins feel too soft or wants to resist being rolled, cover it, put it on a small baking sheet and refrigerate it for 15 minutes).
___If you've successfully rolled it out and folded it twice, you've completed 2 turns. Classic puff pastry gets six. Continue refrigerating it after each 2 turns (or more often if necessary) until all 6 turns are completed.

*Chill
___When all 6 turns are done, put the dough in the refrigerator for at least an hour (and preferable overnight) before shaping.

*Shaping
___After being thoroughly chilled, the dough can be shaped into croissants, patty shells, twists, straws, etc. Scraps can be chilled and rerolled.

*Freezing
___Like other pastry doughs, you can freeze puff pasty in a non-self defrosting freezer for up to a year if it's well wrapped. It can also be frozen at any time during rolling, folding, turning process. Defrost it thoroughly before you use it, just to make sure it does not get too soft.

I was a bit failed on my first attempt...hiks...

I halved the recipes and somehow I miscalculated it, I added extra flour several times to the dough because it was sooooo sticky. Got some problems with the butter leakage as well hehehhehe... you could see on the picture above. Yet, I still continued the process until accomplished to get 3 turns.

But,..........

The result was surprisingly okay, I baked the dough then it turned puffy and its layers were shown nicely like this one....

The second attempt was much better, I improvised a bit on the process. I didn't chilled the butter-flour mixture. What I did was spreading 1/2 of the butter-flour mixture on to 2/3 of the rolled dough and made Dutch envelope. Chilled it for 20 mins and rolled it out into rectangular shape. Spread the rest of butter mixture on 2/3 of the rolled dough again, fold it on Dutch envelope and put it on thie frigde for another 20 mins. I rolled it out again then continue the folding and rolling twice. I made palmiers (shown on pictures above) and keep the rest of the pastry dough for Zupa soup tomorrow ;)

Cinnamon Sprinkles

2 T brown sugar

2 t cinnamon powder

Unbaked cinnamon Palmiers.....

I enjoyed this with a cuppa hot tea....Hmmmmmm
I think I am going to make this again for savoury pastry. It turns out so great....

For Indonesian version, please visit http://klubberanibaking.blogspot.com/2009/01/kbb-9-classic-puff-pastry-pate.html

Cheese Stick

I love cheese stick so much!!! with extra cheese of course. Honestly, this is not my first attempt in making cheese stick. Couple months ago, I tried my luck to make cheese stick (puff pastry) which turned out to be successfully failed :(( hiks hiks hiks....because I didn't know what was envelope-fold looks like and what I had to do with the pastry margarine. You know....I didn't cut the pastry-margarine into small-thin cubes but I just put the whole big lump in the middle of the dough hehehehe... It really a complete disaster since I had to struggle so hard when rolling out the dough and it won't puffed like it supposed to be.. hard as a Rock dude!! hiks hiks hiks

Based on my last experience, a bad one indeed... I need about 3 months of recovery to gather some encouragement to come out and play with pastry....

Fortunately, I found a cheese stick recipe plus its step-by-step pictures... Whoaaaa....my prayers was finally answered :DD...

Here is the FAIL-FREE guarantee CHEESE STICK from Primarasa Menu 16 from Menu Keluarga 79.

Ingredients:
500 g flour,10 g salt, 50 g butter/margarine, 225 ml cold ice-water, 250 g pastry margarine or butter**, 2 egg yolks for greasing, 150 g cheddar cheese (shredded), 100 g parmesan cheese (for sprinkle)

Method:

• Combine flour, salt, margarine/butter, and cold water in a large mixing bowl. Mix well with pastry-fork or simply use your fingers....be careful not to over mixing by transferring too much heat from your fingers to the dough. Form a ball. Put into a plastic bag and let rest in the frigde for 30 mins.





• Roll out dough into +/- 7 mm thick, put pastry margarine or cold butter evenly onto 2/3 of dough surface. Fold un-greased dough to the middle and fold the other 1/3 of greased dough on top of it.





• Roll out again into +/- 7 mm thick, sprinkle 1/3 part of the dough (in the middle) with 25g parmesan. Cover with 1/3 part from your left then sprinkle again with 25 g parmesan. Close with 1/3 dough part from your right side. Roll out into +/- 7 mm thick again. Double fold. Let rest for 15 mins.





• Roll out again into +/- 7 mm thick. Sprinkle half of the dough with 50 g parmesan. Double fold again. once again, roll out. Double fold. Let rest for +/- 30 mins.





• Pre-heat oven into 200^C. Roll out dough into 2 mm thick. Spread with lightly beat egg-yolks. Sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese evenly. Cut into 1x20cm size.




• Twist and place neatly onto cookie tin. Bake for 10 mins. Lower the temperature into 150^C. Bake for another 25 mins until pastry completely puff and golden brown.

** Chill the butter and continue the process.

Yummmmmyyyy....... Ready for snack time....

Mini Cheesecake Pie

This week is PASTRY week for me.....
I made Cheese Stick several times and the last one was Mini Cheesecake Pie (my first experience with PIE really).
Mbak Ade, my hunny's best friend, was having ARISAN at her housing complex. She ordered cheesecake with note "Please make it small Rea, I don't want to hassle the ARISAN host by providing saucer and knife". "Hmmm...Ok", I said. I instantly thinking on slice cheesecake.
Then she called back requested, "rea, I want something that not so sweet, topped with fruit and looks like Pecan Pie". "Could you make something like that please?". ".........", hmmmm..OK", I said.
If you notice the "hmmmmm..." word.... well, it's because I never made pie before. Have no problem about making cheesecake but PIE?? hmmmmm....
I browsed my recipes books collection and decided to make pie shell with bake cheesecake filling and garnished it with fruits.

The recipes follows:

Pie Shell

3 cups flour

6 T white sugar

110 g butter, cubed

110 g margarine, cubed

2 yolks

1-2 T water

Cheesecake Filling

500 g cream cheese

100 g sour cream

150 g caster sugar

1 t lemon

1 t vanilla extract

3 eggs

Garnish

Pineapple, removed "eyes", thinly sliced.

Mandarin orange

maraschino cherries, sliced into 4

Green grapes

1 t konyaku jelly mixed with 1 t sugar and 1/2 cup of water, bring to boil

Directions
*Pie Shell*

• Process flour, sugar, butter and margarine (feel free to subtitute margarine for butter, it's taste better really) until crumbly. Use Pulse mode to prevent the dough getting to much heat from mixing process.
• Add yolks. Process until well combine.
• Add enough water to form a smooth dough. Form dough a ball-like. Put in plastic bag and let it rest in the frigde for +/- 30 mins.
• On lightly dusted flour, roll dough into 0.5 cm and cut into the pie tin. Trimm excess dough.
• Lightly prick the dough on the pie tin with fork for not letting them arise to much when baked.
• Baked for 15 minutes in 160"C.
• Pour with filling and baked again until filling is fully bake.

*Cheesecake Filling*

• Beat cream cheese, sour cream and sugar in medium speed.
• Add eggs gradually. Mix well.
• Add lemon and vanilla extract. Mix well.
• Pour into pie shell. Bake for 35 mins on 180"C
• Garnish with sliced fruits and brush with hot jelly mixture for shiny finishing

Kommentare:

Mbak Ade: Enak Rea.... Enak Banget...

Mbak Chaca: wah hebat....bener loe yang bikin? lembut banget cheesecake-nya...(cuma pie shell-nya ga dimaem karena emang ga suka kulit Pie si Mbak yang satu ini)

Hunny: Enaaaak yang. Lain kali garnishnya ditambah daun mint biar tambah cantik ya...

Peserta arisan: wah..pinter banget bikin kue...Enak..enak...enak... Bisa pesen buat ultah anak ku ga?

Aku: "Ya bisa banget lah mbak :D. ditunggu ya Pesenannya. (hehehehe...I think I got a lot of compliments on that sunny afternoon...)

Thanks ya Mbak Ade for promoting me to your ARISAN's ibu - ibu Taman Mumbul.